Rush: Obamacare Riddled With Trillion-Dollar Accounting 'Tricks'

Obamacare is the Democrats’ “greatest, single excuse to raise taxes” in a long time, and the administration used accounting “tricks” to get the massive bill passed, Rush Limbaugh said on Wednesday.

During his radio broadcast, Limbaugh cited a report that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released today projecting that Obamacare will cost twice as much as estimated.

“The magic number for Obamacare was $1 trillion. They had to keep that number under $1 trillion in order to get it passed,” he said. “The reason was the Iraq war cost about $1 trillion.

“The selling point from the Democrats was that it wasn’t going to be any new money,” Limbaugh said. “We’re just going to get out of Iraq — we’re going to stop fighting the Iraq war — we’re going to take that money and put it where it really matters: healthcare. Affordable healthcare for all Americans.”

This was all “a game” that the Obama administration played to push the legislation through Congress so Obama could sign it into law, Limbaugh charged.

“That’s how they brought recalcitrant Democrats on board,” the radio host said. “It is how they lied to the American people, and said, basically: Obamacare’s going to be a wash. We’re just going to cancel the Iraq war, which is costing about $1 trillion, and replace it with Obamacare, which is $900 billion.”

Obamacare will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, instead of the previously reported $940 billion, according to the new CBO report.

Limbaugh said it was obvious to him from the start that the $940 billion figure was a sham.

“At the time, we told you it was a bogus number. There was no way it would come in at $900 billion,” Limbaugh said.

Of all the accounting “tricks” the Democrats employed, Limbaugh said the worst offender was pushing back implementing the new law until 2014 in hopes of making the costs appear cheaper and putting off the inevitable aftermath until after the presidential election.

“The most egregious of the tricks was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014 so it would appear cheaper under the CBO’s standard 10-year budget window, and — at least on paper — meet Obama’s promise that the total cost would come in around $900 billion over 10 years,” Limbaugh said.

“By 2014, Obama’s no longer accountable — he’s not running for election again at 2014 — he’s either been defeated or he’s been re-elected,” he said. “He’s either in office in his second term or out of office when the real excrement hits the fan. In 2014, if it isn’t repealed, is when the real excrement is going to hit the fan.”

The fact that the cost of Obamacare has doubled should come as no surprise, Limbaugh said, insisting that liberal, social programs “always cost far more than what we are told when the legislation is signed.”

In the case of Obamacare, Limbaugh said, Obama knew all along that it would never cost $940 billion.

“What Obama advertised was a knowing falsehood. What Obama and every proponent said about this was knowingly false. They knew it was going to cost more than $940 billion,” he continued. “They knew it because they had to delay the spending by four years to get it under $1 trillion.

“You can imagine what tax rates will do, given the way Democrats operate,” Limbaugh said. “This is the greatest, single excuse to raise taxes they’ve had in I don’t know how long.”